Mexican police officers man a checkpoint during an anti-narcotics operation in Nueva Italia, Michoacan state. Seven women have been murdered in the country, including one who was beheaded in the southern beach resort of Cancun, authorities have reported. (AFP/Luis Acosta)

Ciudad Juarez – Seven women were murdered in Mexico, including one who was beheaded in the southern beach resort of Cancun, authorities reported Monday.Four of the women were killed in Ciudad Juarez, where two were shot to death, another beaten with a baseball bat and a fourth, a school teacher, also was beaten to death.The northern border city is at the center of a raging drug war that has claimed 2,300 lives so far this year.In Baja California state, two women were found shot to death in Mexicali, also on the US border, the Attorney General's office said.In the Caribbean tourist mecca of Cancun, a 19-year-old woman was found beheaded in a sports stadium.The victim, a suspected prostitute, had a relationship with a police officer who was murdered last week, the office said.Elsewhere, eight men were found murdered in northern Chihuahua state, five of them in Ciudad Juarez, the state attorney general's office said.More than 14,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and deployed 50,000 troops to fight violence.